Tourism New Zealand India gets new marketing and comm team!

Tourism New Zealand has completed the recruitment process for its Mumbai office with a newly appointed Country Manager, Marketing Communications Manager and PR Manager.

Tourism New Zealand’s Regional Manager – South and South East Asia, Mischa Mannix-Opie says the new appointments mean Tourism New Zealand is now well placed to maximise the opportunities available from this growing market.

Neha Bola has been appointed Country Manager and begins on 15 October 2013. Neha joins Tourism New Zealand from Kuoni India where, as General Manager Innovation and Fulfilment she oversaw the roll out of a new portfolio over two years which helped increase market share and revenue growth. She has over 12 years of experience in the travel and tourism space with experience in Business Development, Product Development, Contracting, Sales, Operations, and CRM. Her past assignments have been at TUI, Cox & Kings and SOTC.

Nisha D’souza has been appointed to the role of Marketing Communications Manager and commences October 14. Nisha is from Blue Square Consultants, which is a division of EzeeGo1.  She was the Marketing Manager there and was responsible for managing the marketing activities for destination Oman and Thailand in India. Previously, she was with Cox & Kings as the marketing lead for the promotion of their FIT products and before that she was a Senior Account Executive at Ogilvy One (the digital and direct marketing arm of Ogilvy).

And finally, Naomi Lobo joined Tourism New Zealand in August as the new PR Manager. Naomi is from Beehive Communications Pvt Ltd and was previously responsible for public relations activities for Korea Tourism Organisation throughout 

India and the trade relations with travel agents and customers for the western region of India that includes Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa. She used to previously handle media relations for Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau, Star Cruises and Resorts World Sentosa.

Mischa Mannix-Opie further adds that the three new staff will join Market Development Manager Darshana Tripathi. “With these three new appointments we have built an extremely experienced and skilled team in Mumbai that is ready for the challenge of increasing visitor arrivals from this key market.”

India has been identified by Tourism New Zealand as one of three “emerging markets” where increased investment is needed to build demand and secure a strong long-term position for the New Zealand tourism industry.

The New Zealand Government recently announced $123 million in additional funding for Tourism New Zealand’s work to increase the value of visitor arrivals to the economy.